Friday list: The best summer movie seasons ever

By
Jen Chaney

With "Iron Man 2" banging and clanging into theaters today, the summer movie season of 2010 has officially begun. It's a season that happens to mark an important anniversary: the 35th birthday of the summer blockbuster, which was officially born when 1975's "Jaws" dominated the box office and the collective cultural conversation.

In the years that have followed, the months of May, June, July and August have gotten more and more crowded, as movies -- both of the massive, Spielbergian variety, as well as comedies, indies and even documentaries -- compete to capture our attention during the time of year when everyone is eager to enjoy blissful escapism beneath the chilly blast of cineplex air-conditioning vents.

Luke Skywalker and Yoda, using the summer blockbuster force. (Lucasfilm)

But since "Jaws" ushered in the era of the summer movie, which hot-and-humid years have given us the very best flicks? After careful consideration, I came up with this list of the 10 strongest summer movie seasons -- the ones that delivered numerous, diverse films that entertained, broke cultural ground, set box office records and, in some cases, all of the above.

For the record, 1975 and 1977, the year that gave us "Star Wars," are not on this list simply because they were too dominated by one, single, monumental film. But feel free to disagree with that assessment -- and I know you will -- by discussing your favorite summer movies and summer movie seasons in the comments below.

1. 1980

This was one of the first years when Hollywood fully took advantage of the summer movie season opportunity and delivered a slate of movies that remain, to this day, undisputed, rewatchable classics. Just check out this list: "The Empire Strikes Back," the (arguably) finest installment in the "Star Wars" franchise; "The Shining," one of the most terrifying horror movies ever made; and a trio of beloved comedies that, astonishingly, landed in theaters within roughly the same month: "Airplane!," "The Blues Brothers" and "Caddyshack." Add a number of films that also struck a significant cultural chord -- "The Blue Lagoon," "Urban Cowboy," "My Bodyguard," "Fame" and (that's right, I'll say it) "Xanadu" -- and you've got a summer movie season that set a tone for years to come.

2. 1989

Movies based on comic books existed before this summer. But the modern comic book movie era, with its darker tones and conflicted heroes, officially arrived with the massive hit that was Tim Burton's "Batman." The summer of '89 also delivered a couple of solid and lucrative sequels ("Lethal Weapon 2," "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade"); Academy Award-winning drama ("Dead Poets Society"); a rom-com for the ages ("When Harry Met Sally..."); and a pair of groundbreaking works from then-fresh filmmaking faces, Spike Lee ("Do the Right Thing") and Steven Soderbergh ("sex, lies and videotape"). That's what I call a rich, rewarding and diverse cinematic slate.

3. 1999

An Entertainment Weekly cover story declared this "the year that changed movies." Whether or not you agree, it's tough to deny the impact of several of this summer's pics, films whose success Hollywood would attempt to replicate, ad nauseum, for years to come.

How many summers can claim responsibility for one of the best comic book movies ever ("Spider-Man 2"), the most successful documentary of all time ("Fahrenheit 9/11") and the quirky indie movie that, eventually, made us really sick of seeing quirky indie movies ("Napoleon Dynamite")? Just this one, which also gave us the first really good Harry Potter movie (that's "Prisoner of Azkaban"), a classic weeper ("The Notebook"), a keenly observed indie sequel ("Before Sunset") and the comedy that introduced us to the power of Sex Panther, "Anchorman."

This summer is notable because it marks the first obvious onset of sequel syndrome, in the form of "Jaws II" and "The Omen II." Fortunately, Hollywood made up for those transgressions with soon-to-become classics like "Animal House" and "Grease."

Me and You and Everyone We Know? Holy geez, that was one of the worst movies I have ever seen, and I am a complete quirky/indie lover. I think I've managed to blot out the memory of the disgusting exchange between the boy and the woman at the end.

Liz, is there a comprehensive website to which you could link that lists the summer films for each year, so we could decide for ourselves? The best I could manage quickly was by year on IMDb, e.g., http://www.imdb.com/year/1962 (but those weren't all summer flicks). Thanks, NP.

I love that '89 was high on the list. I was only nine then, but I will never forget being stuck in a traffic jam with my parents on the way back from mini golf because the adjacent movie theater had just let out, and the entire population of Richmond, Virginia had just watched "Batman." It was the moment that I understood what the word "Blockbuster" meant.

And I'm so glad that "Before Sunset" got a nod here. This is perhaps my favorite movie of all time, although this is partly due to the fact that I met my now-husband in Europe and reconnected with him in the U.S. nine years later. Art imitates life imitates art?

Just curious - what about the year of Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Shawshank? When was that, '94? '95?